B. Larson - Creatures

He nodded at me and pushed Jake. Jake fell to his knees. I thought maybe he would cry, and reached out my hand toward him. I glared at Vater, who watched me closely. I managed to control my expression and make my anger vanish, but it was too late. He’d noted it.

“I see,” he said, releasing me. He stepped forward away from Jake and I, we were now behind him, forgotten. I helped Jake to his feet.

Vater approached the other children. He eyed them carefully. I looked at them, trying to see what he might see.

“Children,” said Vater, his voice filled with the infinite patience of a parent that has caught naughty kids for the hundredth time. “We are going to play a game today. A very serious game. The world is a harsh place for our kind. One weak link is all it takes to break a chain, you see.”

We stared at him, not knowing where this was all going. But suddenly, in the quiet, a throat was cleared. All eyes swung to Waldheim, except for Urdo, who looked at the floor.

“Milord,” said Waldheim when those slightly yellow eyes struck him. Again, I was surprised by Waldheim’s obvious state. He worked his hands in his pockets and swallowed as if his throat had filled with dust.

Vater’s brows rose as high as they would go. “Yes?”

“The children, milord,” stumbled Waldheim. “They aren’t prepared for this… for this sort of thing.”

Vater lit up at his words. With one extremely long finger upheld in front of his face, he stalked toward Waldheim. “Exactly!” he shouted. “You have hit upon the trouble, my good dean. They are not prepared. They are not well-served, there has been shirking here, and I’m glad you would be the first to admit it. Your job, I understand, has been the maintenance of discipline, am I right?”

“Yes, milord,” said Waldheim in a strangled voice.

“Then perhaps you’d like to participate in our exercise?”

Waldheim’s face changed from nervous to fearful. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think he feared anything. I found myself wanting to see him change into a lizard and give Vater a good kick in the rear. The thought shocked me, but there it was.

I wasn’t the only one with such a thought in my head, as I heard something then, something everyone heard while Vater and Waldheim stared at one another. It was a coughing sound, but a fake one, the sort of cough a kid gives when they are really saying a word.

The word sounded like “ Bully ” and it came from the kids in the line-up. It could have been a much worse word, but it was hard to be sure. I flicked my eyes that way and saw Beth’s hand coming down from her face. She’d done the fake cough, I knew it in an instant. The rest of us had been conditioned for this moment our entire lives, the moment when we met our great-great grandfather. She hadn’t. She had none of our inbred awe of this strange, scary man. Who else would have had the guts to mock him publicly?

At that single word, Vater stiffened as if someone had put a knife into his back. He loomed up, taller than I would have thought he possibly could have stood. He turned slowly and slid his eyes across the faces of the assembled children. I followed his gaze, and I picked out Beth almost as quickly as he did.

It wasn’t the other kids who gave her away, mind you, I was proud to note that they weren’t snitching on her on purpose. No, what gave her away was her expression. Everyone else had a look of sick shock on their faces, but not Beth. She was trying to look innocent and unconcerned. She was covering, but didn’t realize how everyone else was taking it.

Like a laser beam, I felt Vater’s eyes zero in on Beth. He took a single step toward her, and those long fingers rose up slowly to point at her.

“That one,” he said. He cocked his head at her. It was an animal-like gesture. “You, girl. There is something about you… Did you have something you would like to say, my dear?”

“No sir,” said Beth, still playing innocent. She had the gall to smile at Vater. No one, and I mean not anyone I’d seen so far this day, had even thought to smile while looking at Vater. I felt sure he rarely saw that expression on anyone’s face.

Vater cocked his head the other way and took another single slow step toward Beth. His hand rose up to touch his chin. “Interesting,” he said. “Unforeseen.”

He slowly pointed at Beth with a long finger. The finger turned upward and curled into a beckoning gesture. Beth played up the innocent act to the limit, I’ll give her that. She did the “What, me?” face and pointed to herself.

Vater frowned and raised his chin, beckoning again. Perhaps this time there was a bit of impatience in his gesture. Beth came forward and joined Jake and I in the center of the group.

“Yes,” said Vater, ignoring us now and speaking to the rest of the group. He eyed each in turn carefully. “Yes, I think that’s it.”

Waldheim drew in his breath, and I knew he was about to speak. So did Vater, who put up a flat hand toward Waldheim’s face. “Don’t speak,” commanded Vater. “Don’t compound your errors, Dean.”

Waldheim fell silent. Whatever words he’d thought to say died in his throat without ever having been spoken.

“Children,” Vater said, addressing our classmates. “These three amongst you have been selected as the hares. The rest of you, are the hounds. The hares will run from you today, and tonight, for a full day. You, the hounds, will try to catch them. Are there any questions?”

Danny raised his hand. There was an eagerness in his eyes I didn’t like.

“Speak!” said Vater.

“Milord,” said Danny smoothly. “What will the hounds do when they catch they hares?”

Vater smiled at Danny. He turned and regarded the three of us. “What hounds always do when they catch their prey. Nature will take its course,” he said evenly.

I blinked at him and suddenly, there was an odd pain in my pants. I felt shocking discomfort, and then something long snaked down the back of my pantsleg. It slipped out onto the floor beside my shoe. I had sprouted a long pink scaly tail. The tip of it flipped and curled like a snake around my leg.

Some of the kids in the line-up snickered.

Vater looked down at my tail and pursed his lips. “A rodent,” he said flatly. “I don’t care for rodents.”

I looked back at him, narrowing my eyes. I almost said many things, but held back with a desperate effort of will.

He noted the look in my eye with interest, and gave me a tiny nod, showing he’d read my thoughts.

Vater drew himself up. “The game begins. He pointed at the clock on the wall. It showed it was 10:15 am. “The hounds will give the hares a fifteen minute head start,” he announced.

He turned back toward the three of us and leaned forward. He put his hands on his knees. He eyed each of us intently, Beth, Jake and lastly me. His face loomed into ours.

“It’s time to run, children,” he said in a whisper.

We staggered back away from everyone. All their eyes were upon us.

We ran.

We’d been taught, all our lives, that someday we might be pursued. We’d been taught that on some single, fateful day, we might become hunted prey. Remember all those horror movies that ended with a bunch of angry villagers carrying pitchforks and torches and chasing down the monster? Well, the monsters in those movies were our relatives. We’d been trained for this day, which everyone hoped would never come. But we had never expected that the hunters would be our own friends.

“So now I guess we know what kind of a purge he had in mind,” I puffed as we ran down the hall. Beth and Jake were right behind me.

“What did you get me into, man?” asked Jake, wheezing as he ran.